I hear many people talking about René Girard these days - Roman Catholic, French philosopher and sort of anthropologist, died just a few years ago in 2015.
I don't know if Girard has commented on this, but traditional Christianity (Catholic and Orthodox) has built a model - the Saint - which almost always involves not following the crowd in certain situations.
He does mentions saints as people who are put forward as models to imitate. And inasmuch as we find it easier to imitate people who are more like us, well, you can find some saint out there whose life parallels your own situation.
Master Girard is a thoughtful and thought-provoking philosopher. It is none the less the case that it is taught by the Catholic Church as a matter of faith that Satan is an angel, therefore a created person, fallen. It is true that this isn't articulated explicitly or specifically in the great Creeds but (as he should know very well) the entirety of the Christian religion isn't. (I've probably read perhaps a dozen pages, so am, obviously, not a Girard scholar or partisan.)
Although I respect that he is a Christian, believes in God, seems to believe in the historicity of Jesus (which is rather critical!), he does read the Bible a lot like an historical anthropologist who finds a whole lot in the stories of the Bible to love, finds them to be a great description of human nature, but doesn't care all that much about whether they really happened or not.
The mimesis and truth tangle is a difficulty. I read one of the newsletters here on Substack this morning claim that it "let you know everything that you need to know, so you can be fully informed and go on about your day."
I don't know if Girard has commented on this, but traditional Christianity (Catholic and Orthodox) has built a model - the Saint - which almost always involves not following the crowd in certain situations.
He does mentions saints as people who are put forward as models to imitate. And inasmuch as we find it easier to imitate people who are more like us, well, you can find some saint out there whose life parallels your own situation.
Master Girard is a thoughtful and thought-provoking philosopher. It is none the less the case that it is taught by the Catholic Church as a matter of faith that Satan is an angel, therefore a created person, fallen. It is true that this isn't articulated explicitly or specifically in the great Creeds but (as he should know very well) the entirety of the Christian religion isn't. (I've probably read perhaps a dozen pages, so am, obviously, not a Girard scholar or partisan.)
Although I respect that he is a Christian, believes in God, seems to believe in the historicity of Jesus (which is rather critical!), he does read the Bible a lot like an historical anthropologist who finds a whole lot in the stories of the Bible to love, finds them to be a great description of human nature, but doesn't care all that much about whether they really happened or not.
Interesting summary.
Here's a video exploring Girard's thoughts by David Cayley, whose book on Illich you recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTdvSnj5LBk
The mimesis and truth tangle is a difficulty. I read one of the newsletters here on Substack this morning claim that it "let you know everything that you need to know, so you can be fully informed and go on about your day."